Dear government agents: I *tried* to do the right thing... · 5:22pm Nov 17th, 2020
*phone rings*
*incoming number is listed as 'UNAVAILABLE'. This occasionally indicates a doctor's office*
*pick up*
"Hello?"
{text to speech}"There are activities from your banking account into which there is a legal case being filed under your name. There is an arrest warrant being issued to the same. In order to talk to the law enforcement unit of the Federal Reserve System please press 1.”{/tts}
*press 1*
{male voice, sort of a Korean accent, vaguely bored}"Law enforcement."{/poor unfortunate soul}
"Hi. I'd like to turn myself in. Which office should I report to? I need the address."
"..."
"Because there's a warrant and I'd rather make this easier for everyone. So the address, and the name of the officer I should turn myself in to. And just to let you know, I'll be pleading guilty. I'm not going to fight this in any way. I'm a caregiver: going to prison is a vacation. So what name should I ask for when I surrender? Because it's also about assigning the credit. Do I ask for you? Imagine the promotion you'll get for doing such sterling work!"
"*click*"
*stare at phone*
{Pinkie}"Well! Rude!"{/Pinkie}
Damn even the govt doesn't want to do their jobs.
Maybe this is your bad luck activating.
reminds me of that "telemarketer's nightmare" story:
"this is the FBI. the person you have called has recently been murdered, so you are now a suspect."
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5399802
You do know that's a scam call? They pretend to be a government agency and then demand a fine be paid via Western Union or gift cards.
Weirdly, I had a scam call like this today as well. Mine claimed to be from HMRC (since I'm British), and that it was the "final warning". The robot voice sounded very serious and professional, while remaining completely non-specific on exactly what taxes I'd failed to pay.
Oddly enough, HMRC are a customer of mine. I'd like to say that would buy me some leeway if this was real, but no, faceless government agencies don't do leeway.
5399806
Or having you give your social security number, which is especially sketch if its Social Security calling. Cause if they have your name and phone number, they woudld, yah know, know your social security number
"What number did you dial?"
They will most of the time have no idea.
No matter how they respond, say "Wrong answer" and hang up.
A few months ago had a woman come into my store looking to buy $200 in eBay gift cards. Immediate red flag, no one ever buys those unless they're midway through being scammed. Eventually convince her to talk to me when I tell her outright that people asking for those cards are usually scammers. She explains that the caller said there's a warrant out for her arrest because, and I quote, "they said I rented a car in Houston (we were in Massachusetts, so nearly as far from Houston as possible while still being in the mainland US) and upon its return they found a brick of cocaine in the trunk."
Long pause. "Okay, is any of that... true?"
"Of course not!"
"...Then they are trying to trick you and you owe them nothing."
"But what if–"
"Listen, unless you ACTUALLY went to Houston and rented a car, then left a bunch of cocaine in it for some reason, there is no problem. Also, no legitimate member of law enforcement is going to ask for eBay gift cards to make a warrant like that go away. And if the cop wants a bribe, he's almost certainly going to demand cash quite frankly."
That was a good day. One of the rarer pleasures of life at Walgreens was getting to stop incredibly stupid scammers from getting paid by even dumber people.
i got that call...... i just let them hang until they hang up
5399806
Yeah I know. Just riffing on the title for the most part.
Funny enough I practically never get scam calls. Every single call not worth picking up lately (though I still do because I never know if it's a doctor calling from a non-office number, which has happened numerous times) has been from the friggin' Hilton, because I stayed with them for BronyCon last year. "We're calling because based on your past history staying with us we'd like to give you a special offer—" yada yada yada.
I ain't goin' anywhere right now, buddy/honey.
When your life is SO miserable, that trying to scan you by threaten to make your life miserable sounds as a relief, actually.
Must see the rainbow in the little things, I guess.
This is the real-world equivalent of "You don't want to sell me death sticks. You want to go home and rethink your life."
5399817
As someone who's worked for a bank handling fraud calls and dealing with these situations after the poor person's spent a few thousand dollars (that they usually don't have) on gift cards... thank you for stopping it where you can. The banks can do nothing because legally, it isn't fraud, and those were some of the worst calls I got, because I felt so bad and there was nothing I could do to help.
You got them good. I would expect nothing less then that. I hope you had a good laugh and it brightened your day a bit.
I like to usually jabber on in (very bad) German if I do get a real person on the line, or give them the old trusty "the bodies are ready for retrieval" line. Usually gets them to hang up in a hurry.
LOL
Its fake anyways, i got one like that too
Ha!
The first time I got an “arrest warrant has been issued for you” scam call I thought “That is indeed scary to hear” and figured it would probably be effective in getting money from some people if it wasn’t so obviously a text-to-speech program only slightly less robotic in inflection than Soundwave of the Decepticons and had the broken English script it was reading from not attempted to pass off the idea that I was actually hearing from “Officer Johnson of the I.R.S.”
Many of the callers are kinda poor sobs... the conditions in "normal" call-centers are atrocious enough, no imagine how much worse it must be for call centers serving - without hesitation - criminal customers.
That said, they try to scam you (and every one else they call) out of money, so I don't feel guilty about making their day weird...
*phone rings*
*Guy speaking broken English with a strong Indian accent* "Hello, I'm calling from Microsoft, we have detected that your computer has a virus and need to fix it"
*me* "Oh my.... let me boot up my computer real quick... just a moment... any moment now... *waits for 4 minutes* hmmm, it is not connecting to the Internet, maybe I need to reset the modem... just a sec... *makes phreeeeeee-weeeee-brrrrrrr-dukka-dukka-dukka-trililililililili-shhhhhhhhhhh noises via mouth in the phone* so... I can see you on my screen now... Oh my god! There is a tiger behind you! watch out!!!!!" *hangs up*
See, THIS is why I use call screening. 9/10 times the scammer will just hang up.
5399828
How is that NOT fraud? Pretty sure claiming things that aren't true (whether it's a threat of some kind or claiming to be selling something suspiciously cheap) in order to get someone's money is nearly the textbook definition.
Korean? I thought they were always Indian. In any case, time for you to binge Kitboga.
5399850
It isn't fraud because the person bought the gift cards with their own card, of their own free will. Scams are not fraud, in general. Neither is false advertising. If you buy something and then the product doesn't work, you can file a billing dispute with the bank, which is not a fraud claim, and the bank will attempt to work with the merchant to get your funds back (but it is not guaranteed). Your money is only protected from purchases you did not make, and even if you were misled, if you fall for a scam and buy those gift cards, you were still the one who bought them with your card. The bank cannot trace those cards. No one can. That's why they ask for gift cards.
“My life is so messed up that the horrible thing you are threatening me with would be an improvement to my situation.” That’s a unique way to deal with scam callers.
I usually get those in the forms of Facebook accounts made to represent a family member. Ill never forget the one from Grandpa...six months after he had passed.
"Hello! This is /Grandpa's name"
"Sorry Grandpa. You died." *report account*
My personal favourite is to speak to them progressively softer over the space of about a minute until they’re straining to hear me, and then scream as loud as I can into the phone.
Either that or lead them on for a little bit and then ask out of nowhere, “Do your parents know what you do for a living? Have you told your mother what your job is, calling up people and doing this? Do you think she’d be proud?”
Offering to turn myself in is a new one though, I’ll have to try it. It’s important to have hobbies.
Marvelous. :)
5399809
I got ones of those but I figured HMRC can afford an actual person if they ever need to talk to me.
Nice one! It's always good to see a variation on the theme.
We don't get that many scam calls, fortunately (my wife is very good at handling them now...), but my favourite was not a scam, but someone from a double-glazing company trying to sell conservatories. Kept him on the line for quite a while before pointing out that we lived in a second floor flat (that's third floor to Americans). To give the guy credit, he took it reasonably well.
Saw an interesting one where a scammer called a Microsoft technician who managed to set up a virtual machine for the scam hacker to break into and video the whole process for later analysis and comment. How the hacker dropped the backdoor software onto the virtual, how he forced off the antivirus software and planted his own remote-control software, and how he tried to scram the machine when he was inevitably found out because the Microsoft guy had no intention of giving him a *real* credit card number. It was wonderful.
5399953
My (now late) housemate had the best one of those. Somebody phoned him to sell him an alternative phone service, to which he replied, "Sorry, I don't have a phone."
Once again, Estee is the hero the world needs.
This feels like the beginning of one of your one-shot. But there aren't any phone in mlp sadly so it can't be applied.
LOL. Now start calling him back every hour sounding more and more desperate.
5399968
bet that guy got a raise or at least his year end evaluation was very glowing.
This is EXACTLY why THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT CALL PEOPLE
You have a REAL issue with the government they send you a LETTER BY SNAIL MAIL
You get a call or an Email, I guarantee that it is a scam. Report them to the police.
The MOST you will get from the government is a notice to contact such & such an agency.
DON'T take their word for the office number. Google it. Government offices are listed.
DON'T provide passwords, SS numbers, your name, or, well, anything really.
Anyone you WANT to have that info already has it.
DON'T authorize ANY program to make changes on your computer.
Again, ANYONE you WANT to do that is already authorized to do so.
Anyone asking permission is a scammer.
& DO *NOT* AUTHORIZE PAYMENT FOR ANYTHING YOU DIDN'T SPECIFICALLY ORDER!
You can NOT pay fines by computer or by phone.
Anyone tells you otherwise, it's a scam
I always go into Security & do a complete scan of all files when anything like this happens to me.
Occasionally, they find something.
Oh & Microsoft doesn't contact people by Email either. Someone contacts you claiming to be from Microsoft tech support? They are almost certainly a scammer. Contact Microsoft & report them.
I was with a friend of mine, Jay, one day when he got one of these calls.
He turns to me and asks me if I wanted to know how he handled these people.
Before I could say no (Jay has a rather twisted sense of retribution for people he considers annoyances), he answered it and put it on speaker.
Please bear in mind that Jay has the thickest Southern accent I have ever heard....and I am Southern, myself, so this is saying something.
Scammer: (either Indian or Pakistani) Hello, this is Kevin from American United Credit Services. We are calling you about your credit score-
Jay: Hey, there, li'l fella. Ya got a nice voice.
Poor guy got really confused.
Scammer: ...thank you, sir.
Jay: Whatcha wearin'?
Scammer: Uh...sir, we are very concerned with your credit score-
Jay: Right, dumb question. Better question is, didja shower last night?
Scammer: I'm sorry, sir?
Jay: Didja scrub them feet? In b'tween the toes 'n all?
Scammer: Sir, I-
Jay: (breathing heavily, and in a very...disturbingly excited tone) 'Cuz if ya didn't, ya need ta tell me. Ain't nuthin' gits muh motor runnin' like th' thought o' some dirty feet.
*CLICK*
Jay busts out laughing.
I just...stared at him for a while.
5400113
EXACTLY. If I could give you 100 thumbs up, I would. Please tell these things to everyone you know, ESPECIALLY the elderly. Sadly, they're very vulnerable to these scams. There are too many stories of retirees bankrupting themselves buying thousands of dollars worth of gift cards -- untraceable gift cards -- for their dear grandson-or-daughter who's in a Mexican jail and needs them to post bail. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to us, but remember these crooks are preying upon people who don't know much about modern technology.
Estee, that's a new twist on screwing with these parasites.
The scam I've gotten that I like is the one telling me my Apple products are in danger of being hacked and I need to call a certain number to prevent this. I don't own any Apple products, and I never have.
5399882
So, it's not fraud because no-one is defrauding the bank by pretending to be a customer. They're simply defrauding the customer by pretending to be the IRS, or the FBI, or whatever gets them their gift cards... the actual transaction with the bank is a perfectly legitimate purchase of gift cards by the customer, and the customer's subsequent decision to hand over the gift cards to the scammer falls outside of the bank's anti-fraud protection.
to echo the sentiments of numerous commenters this reeks of being a scam.
Well, that's one way to handle it. :D
5400238
The problem is that the law has to have a strict definition of these things. This is important — it helps define clear limits on what corporations, government agencies, and individual citizens can and cannot do. This means that a matter brought before the court can be made clear in black and white whether an action was or was not in violation of a law.
The problem is that inevitably, people will find loopholes in these definitions to suit themselves. So long as they’re exploiting poor phrasing but not technically violating the specifics of a law, no crime has been committed. And, well, the law has no recourse to protect people who were simply gullible enough to fall for a trick.
In this case, Fraud would require the illegal collection of cash or property under false pretenses. Unfortunately, giving someone a gift card (or several) to make them stop pretending you are guilty of a fictional crime doesn’t fit that definition. And the claim that I Was Stupid Enough To Fall For It is not a valid legal defence.
In a civil case the scammers would lose. But criminal, sadly, is another story. At most they’re guilty of impersonating a Government Official, but that’s near-impossible to prove and would have no bearing on charges of Fraud.
5400311
That's fair. One can claim that the scammer is presenting a false pretense to the victim in order to obtain cash or property; however, all that the bank's anti-fraud system is is to prevent the bank from being caught out by false pretenses (and the giftcard scam is a great way to ensure that the bank can't trace things, either). In an ideal world, everyone would be able to spot this sort of scam, and it would therefore not be a problem - unfortunately, an ideal world is not what we live in (and I think that this year has really bought certain parts of the non-idealness of this world into sharp focus).
5400048
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/109516/dear-friend like this one?
5400481
And granted, the moment you realize you lost your card or see a transaction you don't recognize, DO call your bank immediately, they DO cover fraud and you aren't liable for charges you did not make. (A note while I'm on the subject: if you go to a gas station and pay for gas at the pump and then look at your transaction history, you may see a $1 ((and rarely, $101 if it was a Pilot gas station that often services semi trucks, which use more gas)) pending charge on your card. This is not fraud, this is a placeholder charge that the pump makes to make sure your card is real. It will go away and be replaced with the actual amount you spent on gasoline.)
5400545
Oh, yes. Indubitably worthwhile to call in that case (and I've known people who have been very glad of that protection in the past...)
You might get a giggle out of kitboga, he's got an entire twitch channel dedicated to doing this kinda thing and theres highlights on YouTube
5399810 The ones I love are the ones who have examined our credit history and are willing to give us a lower rate on our credit cards. My discussion with the twits normally gets to one particular point "Look, if you have my credit history in front of you, then you know my credit card numbers, so just tell me the last four digits.... hello?"
My son got hammered on an Advance Fee Fraud when he was looking for a roommate. Said 'roomie' sent him a check for much more than the asked for deposit, had him send the 'remainder' back by Western Union, and the check bounced higher than a rubber ball. If any of you work for a bank and a customer comes in looking for a large sum of money to be sent by Western Union, please check.